


you have no reason and i have no proof

by buckybunnyteeth



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Episode: S3e01Laws of Nature, Gen, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-24 10:56:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4916872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckybunnyteeth/pseuds/buckybunnyteeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It looks like you’ve disobeyed my orders,” Coulson said in his infinity docile tone, though his face looked weary, “You have aided in Fitz’s obsession with the Obelisk, Hunter, and potentially endangered both yourselves and the base in the process. I’m afraid I have no choice but too-“</p><p>Before Coulson could finish his sentence the Obelisk came alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you have no reason and i have no proof

“And I’d choose you; in a hundred different lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.” – Kiersten White, The Chaos of Stars.

…

It takes two more months to get everyone on the search for Simmons. After Fitzs break down in front of the Obelisk everyone is given official orders to abandon the search for the missing scientist, and unofficial orders to keep an eye of Fitz. 

They send him to a shrink and put him on leave for as long as they can afford. But in the end he doesn’t say a word during therapy and S.H.I.E.L.D can’t afford to keep Fitz out of the field any longer.

“We’re not the enemy here, Fitz,” Coulson tells him with exasperation, pulling him aside from the others who have gathered to welcome him back, “We want Simmons back too, but there comes a point where you just have to accept- …we just want you to be okay Fitz. If we can have nothing else we want you to be okay.”

Fitz nods and says he is going to be okay. He says it again and again to everyone who asks, “I’m going to be okay” “I’ll be fine” and it’s not a lie. Because he will be. 

The second he brings Jemma home. 

He enlists Hunters help because he is the least objectionable of them all, and because of all they went through last year. 

It takes weeks of working around gruelling missions and fudging security tapes, codes, and alarms and even longer working with the Obelisk at ungodly hours of the night. Hunter ran diversions and alibies and stayed up beside him, quickly becoming Fitz gage for the passage of time and the only thing that got him to go to bed at night.

“You’re lucky we’re mates,” Hunter chuckled to him one night when they had just dashed away from a security patrol, breathless and grinning, “I’m pretty sure we’re risking our jobs here, love.”

“I know,” Fitz replied, much more puffed than his friend, “I- … I swear I’ll make it up to you. Everything you’ve done for me, I swear.”

Lance chuckled and slung his arm tighter around the smaller man’s shoulders.

“Nah. Just get her back then we’re square, yeah?”

Fitz smiled for the first time in weeks, “Yeah.”

As much as they wanted too they couldn’t keep their investigations secret for long. They were set up in the lab moving on to the next part of his plan at four in the morning when Coulson, Mack and Bobbi came storming into the lab.

Fitz whirled around as his heart sped up in his chest. His tablet hung from a strap on his chest, connected to a set of nodes on the Obelisk while his hands readied his latest invention. He was so close he could feel it in his bones. And also had deduced an oncoming change in the Obelisk from weeks of careful information gathering and the introduction of the new foreign body (see new invention). 

“ShazBot,” Hunter said, standing up from his lounging perch to come between Fitz and their advancing boss, “Sir, I know this looks bad-“

“It looks like you’ve disobeyed my orders,” Coulson said in his infinity docile tone, though his face looked weary, “You have aided in Fitz’s obsession with the Obelisk, Hunter, and potentially endangered both yourselves and the base in the process. I’m afraid I have no choice but too-“

Before Coulson could finish his sentence the Obelisk came alive. 

The previously solid surface rippled and spurted out like plasma, shooting out towards the invention in Fitz’s hand. He let out an unmanly shriek as the floating liquid like form continued to move, almost touching his skin before Hunter’s quick thinking kicked in and he yanked Fitz away from the platform, sending them tumbling to the floor as the Obelisk swallowed the invention and retreated back to its solid form.

It was over just as quickly as it had begun. A little under whelming in end, really.

Bobbi and Mack jumped into action, closing the door to the containment box and turning on instruments to scan the Obelisk.

Hunter helped Fitz to his feet and cast a look over his shoulder at Coulson.

“So, Boss, maybe-?”

“Yeah, yeah. Retract what I just said.”

They all just kind of stood there a moment, each keeping their eyes on the Obelisk as if it was going to spring to life again. 

Which meant that when Fitz’s tablet let out a series of beeps and screen flashes everyone jumped.

“Oh my god,” Fitz said, “oh- just- oh my god.”

“What is it?”

Fitz held the screen up to Coulson. The older man’s face went slack.

“Is that-”

“-a video feed.”

A flickering shaky video feet, being streamed from where ever the stone had transported Simmons. He had built the little robot out of the strongest and most lightweight metal he had access too and placed a camera on it, along with some sensors and a microphone in the biggest leap of faith he had ever taken. 

Proving that all of Fitz’s hopes were never in vain.

“She’s alive.”

Coulson let out a shaky laugh.

“Yeah,” he clapped Fitz on the shoulder, their hope filled eyes meeting, “Thank you, Fitz. Thank you.”

“What now, sir?”

Coulson looked up at Mack’s question and met the eyes of everyone in the room.

“Now we bring her home.”

…

No one doubted that Jemma was alive. Or at least no one voiced the thought that she may have been transported to the planet (which appeared to be a moon of some kind) only to die there. Not one of the team believed that Jemma Simmons could be killed so easy.

All of the efforts that could be spared were, teams of people redoubling their efforts to study the stone. No that they knew that the Obelisk could transport people they were desperately exploring how to recreate the process and effectively open a door for Simmons to come home through.

“I don’t understand,” Skye announced. They were all gathered around station set up for Fitz, a wall of monitors and equipment that screen, recorded, and sorted the sound and images coming from the little robot as Fitz steered it around the unknown planet.

“What don’t you understand?” Bobbi replied.

“How did Fitz manage to get the rock to swallow his droid?” Skye continued, looking around at the team who all frowned as to say they didn’t understand either, “I mean, besides Simmons, that thing didn’t even flinch when we went near it.”

The team turned to Fitz who was hunched down over a key board, skin pinking in a blush as he bit his lip.

“Fitz,” Hunter said slowly, “What did you do?”

The young scientist winced and looked up at Skye.

“Well, our Intel said it was a Cree stone, or at least an alien stone. So I thought ‘it may respond to alien DNA-”

“Oh my god” Skye, whispered.

“-so I kinda maybe … sprinkled some of your blood on the Robot.”

“Jesus,” Hunter said, “I don’t know if that’s creepy or insanely Metal.”

“I’m sorry-” Fitz stuttered, “I should have asked, I was just so desperate, I-”

“It’s alright, Fitz,” Skye said solemnly, “I would have given you all the blood I could if it means brining her home.”

Fitz nodded. He still felt shitty for his actions, but they could sort that stuff out when Jemma was home. 

“I’ve got another question,” Hunter said, raising his hand, “How much of a battery life dose that litter bugger have?”

Fitz felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.

“Oh fuck.”

He scrambled across his desk brining up a screen of information that went over most of the people in the room’s heads.

Fitz sucked in a gasp.

“Seven hours.” He said weakly, “We have seven hours.”

The room fell into palpable silence. They had seven hours and practically an entire, unknowably sized moon, to search. The sense of dread came back full force in the back of Fitz’s stomach.

“Well,” Skye broke, “Let’s get to work.”

…

“No sign of her.” Coulson said as Skye came back into the room, and Fitz bristled from where he was sat with his eyes glued to the screen. The team who weren’t on watch duty (watching Fitz while he piloted the droid) had taken to flitting in and out of the room, getting coffee and leaving with a encouraging remark that were getting more desperate as time moved on.

“How’s the clock?” She said in return, setting down coffee.

“Two hours,” Fitz said automatically.

“Have you seen-“

“No.”

He tried not to snarl it out. But he was tired and angry and half way to crying. He couldn’t help it. Coulson shot Skye a sympathetic look before getting up to leave, his shift over.

“Right.”

Skye sat down beside Fitz, gluing her eyes on the screen. She placed a hand on Fitz’s back for a moment, a gesture of comfort. It helped. 

That sat there like that, a big red timer quickly dwindling down before them. With each change in the red numbers Fitz felt his heart crack a little more.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said softly, a tear escaping down his cheek, “No sign of life.”

Skye let out a shaky sigh.

“Fitz I-”

A piercing sound came over the microphone causing them to jerk back from the screens. A piercing high pitched, unmistakably Jemma Simmons ‘whoop’ of excitement.

She burst onto the screens, dirt streaked grinning face and ripped clothes, but Jemma Simmons all the same.

“Fitz!” She yelled, tears beginning to stream down her cheeks, “Fitz! I knew it- I knew you would find me! I knew it!”

“Jemma!” Fitz called back, leaning down to speak into the microphone, “Jemma, I can’t believe it! Are- are you alright?”

“I’m fine!” she practically sang, “Cut and bruised- I had to run across a desert to get to you- I knew it was one of yours the second I saw it. Oh my god, Fitz!”

“Skye’s here too!” He crowed and then watched as his best friends face got impossibly happier.

“Jemma!” Skye called, voice thick with tears, “Oh my god- do you- can you tell us where you are?”

“It’s hard to tell, but as far as I can guess,” she bit her lip for a moment, face losing some happiness in favour of fear, “I’m on Titan.”

“Titan?” Fitz gasped in disbelief, “Saturn’s ruddy moon, Titan?”

Jemma let out a bubbling laugh, “That’s the one.”

“You’re so close!” Skye crowed, “I mean, you know, closer than Asgard.”

All three of them jumped when a robotic voice spewed forth from the speakers of the computer, announcing that they only had seven minutes of battery left.

“Oh, no” Jemma said, coming across crackly on the speakers.

“Jemma,” Fitz said, sounding like he was in physical pain, “We’re-”

“-Coming to get me. I know.”

“I-”

“I’m not alone here, Fitz,” she confessed in a near whisper, face and voice cracking, “I’m- I am being hunted. I never see them … but they see me.”

Fitz let out a ragged breath.

“Is there anything we can do?” Skye asked, eyes becoming steely like they did before she had a mission.

Jemma was quiet for a moment.

“How long do we have left?”

“…Four minutes.”

Jemma visibly paled and fresh tears overtook her face.

“Could …” she spoke like a confession, “Could you sing to me, Fitz? I just … I just need something. I just need something to-”

“Yeah,” he said with a crackly voice, “Yeah.”

He cast a look at Skye before turning back to the microphone, licking his lips and-

“ _Well I am the boy who cried wolf, and I know I have lied in the past. But last night I saw his yellow eyes shining in the dark… ___”

… 

The screen went dark. He and Skye sat there in the shadows and sobbed, let themselves break, knowing that they still had many miles to go. 

They emerged from the room, red eyed and steely faced, to meet the rest of the team. 

“What do we do now?” Mack asked and everyone cast their eyes from Fitz to Coulson. 

Fitz drew in a shuttering breath and stood as tall as he could. 

“Get Thor on the phone,” he all but snarled, “Tell ‘em we need a lift.” 

**Author's Note:**

> the title and the son Fitz sings are both from "the Boy Who Cried Wolf," by Passenger.
> 
> I dunno I thought of this in the shower and I like that its got no romance in it. I dunno, tell me what you think.


End file.
